TL: To follow that up, what types of challenges do you face when trying to balance the needs of the casual player versus the rage of hardcore players like in the progaming community. You had mentioned the macro mechanics being a big one.

DB: Sure that’s definitely a big one – it’s a place where we feel we can definitely do better but it then does break other systems. You know a great example I love reading on Teamliquid and elsewhere were not so much that you guys were missing clicks – some people said that and I didn’t agree with that – but that we were missing the difference between a macro player and a micro player. That we were destroying the sense of style of the player. I could be playing a micro game and you could be playing a macro game with both the same race, and we are still playing a very different game from one another. And when I saw that I was like “Ohh!” I was opening my eyes like “Thanks! THERE IT IS! That’s great! That’s genius! That’s exactly what we need to try to accomplish”.

For BlizzCon 2007′s story-mode build, most players would just click through Raynor’s dialog lines, ignoring them. Blizzard wanted the player to choose how they want to play the game based on the missions they chose, not based on something they said in a bar, because that doesn’t feel appropriate for a game about commanding armies and smashing empires. Choices that gave more meaning were; “Where do I send my army next?” and “How do I upgrade my technology?” The choices you were given when speaking to other characters looked like they were important and meaningful, though they really weren’t, that’s why Blizzard removed it from the game. Some people would probably have enjoyed this part of the game, but that’s not most people. Blizzard cut content because they want to keep the best stuff, and overall this makes it a better game.< \li>

Blizzard does have interest in exporting replays to a video format, but will probably not get around to it soon due to time constraints. Dustin Browder claims “We’re hugely interested in supporting e-sports and this is one of those things we want to do. I don’t know what the status on this is, but we will have patches after ship and expansions yet to come.”< \li>

The map editor will be released on beta, but not at day 1. Probably somewhere mid beta. Blizzard wants to beta test the editor itself first and see how it interacts with Battle.net. Also Blizzard wants to let modders try it, so when release comes we will see some cool mods pretty early.< \li>

Some RPG-style quests in StarCraft II take hours to create, others could take weeks or months, depending on how difficult it was to put together. Blizzard wants some of the quests to have multiple solutions. They did not want an RPG system that implies that there will be hundreds of quests. They want it to be more about the starmap and tech purchase.< \li>

StarCraft II has alot of unit models that are no longer in the multiplayer, and some who were made specifically for single player. Dustin didn’t have a number, but claimed we will probably have to wait until the expansions to reach the same amount of models that were in WarCraft III.< \li>

The BlizzCon demo takes place at the middle of the beginning part of the campaign, there are three missions previous to the mission branch playable at BlizzCon. The Zerg are making their move into Terran space, but Jim Raynor at the time is leader of a relatively small and helpless faction.< \li>

Blizzard has put equal emphasis on the importance of single-player and multiplayer. Many fans of the series that are still active in the community are focused mostly on multiplayer, but much of Starcraft’s popularity is based on it’s campaign modes.< \li>

Dustin’s biggest hope for the game is racial balance and living up to StarCraft’s expectations and legacy.< \li>

The campaign has a full tutorial system, with videos and interactive missions. Skirmish mode also includes starting tutorials for the non campaign races. The campaign also includes multiplayer oriented challenge modes that help practice skills and tactics used for multi-player battles.< \li>

Internally, Blizzard feels the Zerg are vastly underpowered, namely in tier 2. Beta will be the period where they direct the game’s balance.< \li>

Racial identities and playstyles are being treated as self-emerging through develeopment. Terrans have developed into a much more mobile race, but this is not the final decision for their overall playstyle feel.< \li>

Unit upgrades and unique abililty upgrades are not segregated in order to make the building choices more varied and interesting.< \li>

Macro mechanics are still being reworked, overall they are happy with spawn larvae and MULE calldown, while Proton Charge is still being looked at for big changes.< \li>

Dustin feels that Zerg and Terran are close to equal difficulty, with Protoss being the easiest to use.< \li>

The Raven is close to how they want it designed, with some changes possibly needed for the point-defense turret to make it’s role more clearly understood.< \li>

Some Protoss missions are playable in WoL for storytelling purposes.< \li>

The campaign currently has approximately 15 tilesets.< \li>

Mutiple tilesets can be used in single maps.< \li>

The basic idea for the Protoss campaign is the ultimate shattering and re-unification of the Protoss factions. The basic gameplay idea is to utilize the strengths and weaknesses of different Protoss factions to create your own new Protoss unification.< \li>

The plan for the Zerg campaign is to be hero-centric than the other two campaigns.< \li>

The Protoss campaign will be more focused on the Star Map and planet exploration than the Terran campaign.< \li>

The DLC plan includes additional challenges more geared to the evolution on the current meta game. Other DLC plans are still not decided.< \li>

Map editor features not necessary for StarCraft II (such as an inventory and hero system for DOTA clones) are included.< \li>

Models and graphics from the campaign can be used in custom maps, animations can not.< \li>

The Zerg have more “iconic” units that they feel could not be removed (zergling, hydralisk, mutalisk), so it is more difficult to make the Zerg fresh and interesting.< \li>

The campaign will feature a lot of super high powered unit upgrades and abilities that won’t be in multiplayer.< \li>